A Mud-free Final 4 Weeks? Debate Tantalizes Voters

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HARTFORD, CONN. — For 90 minutes, the campaign of tedium was elevated into a lesson in civics and civility.

The first debate on Sunday night may not help Bob Dole much in his pursuit of the presidency, but he and President Clinton deserve a vote of thanks for helping politics regain its good name.

If many votes were changed by the encounter on the stage of Bushnell auditorium, I would be surprised. But there is now a better chance that the final four weeks of the contest will not degenerate into the kind of character assassination and issue distortion we have seen too much of in the past.

Clinton was guilty of repeating the worst piece of Democratic Party demagoguery, the contention that the Republican congressional budget would have ''cut Medicare by $270 billion,'' when in fact it would have slowed the growth of that program only slightly more than the president's own plan.

On the other side, Dole seemed a bit surly when he twice chided Clinton for failing, in the 1992 debates, to refer to George Bush as ''Mr. President,'' a bit of historical trivia forgotten by everyone until Dole brought it up.

But putting these lapses aside, the debate was a testament to the fact that two experienced politicians, whose ambitions have collided, can still deal with each other in a way that commands respect.

The encounter would have been livelier - and less scripted - had Ross Perot been on the stage, as he should have been, or had moderator Jim Lehrer been less self-effacing. But the country had a chance to hear each major nominee make his best arguments for election.

Clinton had the easier task. Bolstered by a remarkably strong economy, the president has been cruising ahead of his challenger for months. His manner was one of subdued self-confidence, and he projected a sense of solid comfort that undoubtedly reflects his political mood.

Dole had the harder job - convincing the viewers that economic optimism is unjustified and that trouble lurks overseas. He is probably right on the second point. A quick survey of Washington think-tank foreign-policy experts that I made last week produced a near-unanimous view that the next four years will bring enormous challenges on the world scene.

From North Korea (cited specifically by Dole) to the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, to the unfinished business in Haiti and Bosnia, problem areas abound. But the biggest headaches for the man in the Oval Office will probably come from the leadership changes and succession struggles that are almost inevitable in the near future in both Russia and China. The public is likely to tune out foreign policy, but the world will not let us ignore it.

When it comes to the home front, where elections are decided, Clinton holds the high ground in this contest. The economy is stronger in most parts of the country and consumer confidence has risen.

When Dole's running mate, Jack Kemp, talks about the Dole economic plan, he brags that it will double the size of the gross national product inside a dozen years. With his boundless optimism, Kemp can manage to make anyone - including Clinton - seem like a defender of the status quo.

Try as he might, Dole with his memories of the Great Depression cannot strike the upbeat Kempian note. When he recited the less cheerful statistics in the current economy, he seemed like what an earlier generation of politicians called ''a prophet of doom and gloom.'' And he left himself open to Clinton's most telling line, ''It's not midnight in America, senator.''

But if Dole was less than convincing on the economic front, there were many other things he was not, which will salve the wounds of defeat if this campaign does turn out to be his last hurrah.

He was not the harsh partisan he appeared to be when he served as Richard Nixon's Republican National Committee chairman in 1972 and as Gerald Ford's vice presidential running mate in 1976. That Dole etched an impression of cold, barbed and cutting remarks that the real Bob Dole - admired by senators of both parties - spent 20 years trying to put to rest.

And on Sunday night, Dole also was not the character assassin that some in the Grand Old Party hoped he would be. The ''trust issue'' is legitimate in choosing a president, and Dole raised it in regard to Clinton's unkept 1992 campaign promise to cut middle-class taxes.

However, when Lehrer invited Dole to discuss ''significant differences in the more personal area that are relevant to this campaign,'' Dole demurred. ''I don't like to get into personal matters,'' he said. ''As far as I'm concerned, this is a campaign about issues.''